Stuck In The Human World
by Poofiemus
Summary: Sulley & Mike get stuck in the human world when trying to visit Boo. Randall has found himself a human friend, and Randall's cheating sister Clarissa has begun plotting back home. We've got trouble too big for just one world!*It's Done!*
1. Chapters 13: Randall's Situation and Sul...

CHAPTER ONE  
  
A reptilian creature with eight legs and the ability to camouflage himself like the chameleons of our world lurked in the shadows of a chain link cage in the bowels of the Everglades. The creature was intelligent, angry, banished, and named Randall Boggs. Randall had been pitched through a miracle of technology that had allowed many another monster to creep beyond the borders of their own universe into the human's world to collect the screams of children for electrical energy. The technological wonder was a copy of a human child's closet door, hence children's worldwide fear of monsters hiding in their closets. Randall had been thrown through one such door where the stupid kid had mistaken him for an alligator. Then Randall's already bad situation got worse. You see, the family collected alligators to sell for a living, and, currently lacking a tranquilizer, had resorted to knocking him out with a shovel.   
  
When he returned to consciousness, he found himself being stared at by a dozen pairs of ancient eyes with the eagerness of satisfying instincts for catching live prey near at hand. Randall, unaware of their primitive lack of intelligence, had attempted to address them as equals into giving him assistance in escaping. "Hey! Will you fellows help me out?" he queried, soon to have his tail chomped on by the nearest beast with an unexpected lightning- fast strike.  
  
"Yow!" he hollered, cradling his injured tail gently in two of his hands. "Okay. So you want to play rough, huh?" he threatened, still not quite catching the alligator's stupidity. "I'll play rough!" And with that, he launched into the stinking pond to extract a small revenge from his attackers.  
  
The twelve gators decided to compete for what they considered a free lunch. Randall soon found himself struggling for something he had never struggled for before in his life: survival.  
  
And he had never struggled harder in his whole life, including when he had struggled to be top scarer in Sullivan's place.  
  
When his human captors noticed how badly Randall was " getting' along with his kin", they immediately moved him into a separate enclosure. He only slept on the first night. All other nights he tried to escape his bizarre prison, just so he could go home. But the humans somehow caught him at it every time. And each time, they figured out how he had gotten out and fixed the problem. I should have given these human things more credit, he frequently found himself thinking.  
  
On the other hand, he learned that humans were the only truly intelligent beings in their entire world. He also formed more questions than he ever had about this place he was trapped in, such as: "How can humans tell each other apart?" and "Why are these alligator thingies all called the same thing? And what are these infernally annoying things that keep biting me when I'm not looking? These bites ITCH!"  
  
Depressed, he was there for three months, and then was auctioned off as an exotic pet. It wasn't for another week that he got through his homesickness enough to realize how humiliating being a pet was.   
  
Randall's owner was Gill Bates, the owner and CEO of the computer company Macrosoft. Gill had bought Randall so he could frighten his subordinates into complying with all his orders. This worked with amusing efficiency. The secretary or the head of the marketing department or whoever would come into the office and ask to change something. If Gill approved, it happened without question. If he didn't approve, however he would threaten to set Randall loose on them. This worked so well that even good ideas were quickly "forgotten".   
  
This may have worked well for Gill, but Randall, who Gill referred to as Stinky, hated the situation more than Gill's company men did. He was bored and humiliated. If the department of animal control had ever stopped by, Gill would have been arrested for animal cruelty. Randall got kicked, yanked, stepped on and sometimes ignored. He had thought the cage in the Everglades was bad, but this was far, far worse.   
  
  
CHAPTER TWO  
  
Randall wasn't the only one who suffered from some form of depression in those months. The very monster that Randall despised the most was sick with missing the cute little human girl he and his best friend had rescued from Randall Boggs. James Sullivan, better known by the warmer nickname Sulley, had become a hero with the aid of his one- eyed green pal Mike Wazowski. Together they had not only rescued an innocent girl from nothing short of torture and found an alternative source of energy while they were at it. Despite being a hero in the eyes of the city Monstropolis for fixing the energy crisis so efficiently, Sully misses the tiny human girl so much he had a hard time concentrating on his job as the new owner and CEO of the power company, Monsters, Inc.   
  
The solemn sadness of his seven-foot tall furry blue- and- purple buddy was not lost on Mike. He had worked for nearly a year on the perfect surprise to bring his roommate and friend back to the emotional top.   
  
"Close your eyes," Mike told the close companion that he longed to see happy again. "No peeking,"  
  
When Sulley finally did get Mike's permission to open his eyes, he realized just how well Mike knew him. It was the door of the little girl that had won his heart, carefully pieced together after having been shredded to pieces.  
  
"Sorry it took so long," Mike said. "It was a lot of wood to go through."  
  
Sulley couldn't find any words to express his gratitude. Instead he smiled at his best pal and slowly opened the precariously reassembled door. There was a warm light like that of early morning streaming through the white curtain trimmed window, and the birds were chirping up a storm. But Sulley only had eyes for the small brown- haired figured that called him by a nickname that only she could get away with.  
  
"Kitty?" a small, hopeful voice called, not bothering to hold back her overwhelming joy at seeing her hero again.   
  
"Boo?" the furry thing called Sulley replied with equal hope and joy.  
  
"Kitty!" Boo answered, scrambling as fast as she could out of her bed. Sulley tried to rush to Boo, but was stopped by Mike's voice behind him.  
  
"Aren't ya gonna let me see her, fur ball?" he said in mock anger.  
  
Before Sulley could say a word, Boo cried, "Mike Wazowski!" and rushed toward the unusual pair. She wrapped one arm around Sully's leg, and wrapped the other around Mike's head, which also happened to be his body. Mike made some comment, but it was severely muffled by Boo's joyful hug.  
  
"What did you say, Mikey?" Sulley asked when he managed to pry Boo off Mike to pick her up.  
  
"I said that she's taller than me!" Mike said, his tone of voice implying something like awe.  
  
Boo leaned out of Sulley's arms a little towards Mike, held her finger to her lips and said, "Shh. Mommy's sleeping."  
  
Mike's mouth dropped open, exposing his green gums. Sulley nearly dropped his beloved Boo.  
  
"Boo, you talk!" he said, disregarding her warning.  
  
She just looked at him, nodding her head, with an expression that seemed to say, Yeah, I talk. Didn't you know that, Kitty? The little reunion was split up by a sound not too far down the hallway that was outside Boo's bedroom. The little girl, knowing all too well what was coming, whispered frantically, "Go go go go!"   
  
"Why?" Sulley asked her, still not being quiet.  
  
"Mommy!" she hissed, and pointed toward her bedroom door.  
  
Now Sulley got it. Boo's mother was awake, and Boo didn't want Sulley and Mike to get caught. Sully put his dear friend down, and ushered his roommate toward the fragile closet door.  
  
"What- Why are we leaving?" Mike asked, his one eye lolling up at his comrade. "We just got here!" He said this loudly.   
  
"Sh. Boo meant that her mother was coming," Sulley said in a quick tone that had an underlying fear.   
  
"Oh!" Mike said, understanding. He bolted toward the closet door and gave it a good hard yank.  
  
The company was briefly visible before the collapse of the delicate door caused the view to dissolve. The door had fallen apart, trapping Sulley and Mike in the human world!  
  
  
  
CHAPTER THREE  
  
"Oops," Mike muttered, looking sheepish and smirking nervously. "Hee hee. I forgot to glue it together."  
  
"Mike!" Sulley exclaimed, frustrated by his friend's absentmindedness.  
  
"I thought I could do it later!"   
  
"Like your paperwork?"  
  
"Don't you dare bring that up now, pal! Paperwork was low priority!"  
  
"Go!" Boo hissed, pushing them into her closet as the noises in the hall built up a crescendo.  
  
She pushed the protesting pair into her closet and shut them in. She then scampered into her bed, pulling the covers up to make it look like she was still asleep. Not a second after an adult female human, the likes of which Sulley and Mike had never seen before, entered the room groggily. Her auburn hair was severely disheveled after a night's uneasy sleep. Still clothed in her pajamas, the short woman bent over to the seemingly sleeping figure and gave her a slight shake. "Mary, little Fluzzy, its time to get up. We're going on a trip," she said.  
  
"Where are we going?" she said, blowing off her "I'm asleep and have been all night" act.  
  
"To Uncle Gill's,"  
  
"Oh," she said, put out.  
  
Boo's mother simply shook her head. She headed toward Boo's closet to pick out something for her youngest daughter to wear. Still not fully awake, she shuffled over to the door and opened it. What she saw was not what she expected to find in a closet at five in the morning on the day before Thanksgiving. In fact, she wouldn't have expected to see what she saw any day at any time, except for perhaps midnight on Halloween. Sulley and Mike were equally stunned. They had never seen a human older than seven. The human that stood in front of them now was clearly much older. She didn't scream or run away. Instead, she just stood in front of them, staring like a deer in headlights.  
  
"Uh, hi," Sulley said uneasily. "I'm James Sullivan, err, Sulley, an- and this is my buddy, uh, Mike Wazowski." He introduced them, hoping to keep her from thinking the two were escapees from the local zoo or funny farm.  
  
"Sull, what on earth is wrong with you? We get stuck here, shoved in a closet like some sort of criminals, and then you introduce us like two regular shmoes at a dinner party! Sulley, I swear, you're insane!" Mike blurted out, having one of his little panic attacks.  
  
"There's two creatures that look like they came out of a toddler's T.V. show standing in my daughters closet calling each other insane. I think I'm the one who's insane!" Boo's mother said, laughing nervously. "I think I must be experiencing side effects from that new medication. Yeah, hallucinating is one of the side effects; I think I should call my doctor."  
She rambled, trying to reassure herself. She turned around as to walk out, but a new voice erupted down the hallway.  
  
"Fred, you dope! The only reason I'm calling you is to see if you can pet- sit our guinea pig! My uncle has an eight-foot long alligator for a pet that could swallow the Hulk in one bite! I need you to sit him!"  
  
A blonde human girl in her early teens came past Boo's open bedroom door, yelling at someone through a white portable phone. She looked into the room while the person on the other end complained to her. She glanced at Sulley and Mike, disregarding them.   
  
"Fred, sitting Hulk is not going to interfere with your project. All you need to do is fill the dish with food, fill the bottle with water, and keep your dog from chewing on him. Is that too much to ask?" She looked in the room a second time, and did a double take. She stared at them a moment, and smiled at the peculiar beings in her little sister's room. Then she frowned. "You can't take him? Fred, you've got to! I can't! All right, fine, I'll try Amber across the street. Thanks for considering. Have a happy Thanksgiving. Bye."  
  
The girl hung up the phone and walked into the room. "Where'd these guys come from, Mom?" she asked. "They're so cool!"  
  
"We got stuck," the lime colored sphere called Mike said moodily.  
  
"This is so awesome!" she said, surprising every human and monster present. "Hey, can you take care of our guinea pig while we're gone? I don't want him to get eaten."  
  
"Jade!" the adult human snapped, scolding. "You're asking total strangers to take care of our pet!"  
  
"Sorry, Mom. I just thought it would be better for total strangers to take care of Hulky than an alligator in its digestive tract." The blonde named Jade stated.  
  
"Oh, we'd be happy to take care of your pet if we could, miss," said Sulley. "But we're kind in a situation where we have to worry about taking care of ourselves."  
  
"Sulley, we don't even know what a guinea pig is," Mike said, wondering if his buddy was feeling okay.  
  
"Pardon me for asking, but where did you come from?" the girl's mother inquired.  
  
"From our world, stupid! We rescued Boo from being slurped on by a huge machine and put her back. When we tried to put her back, Sulley here got attached to her, and wanted to see her again, so I put her door back together and it fell apart, trapping us here!" Mike explained, as though the answer was immediately obvious.  
  
"Wait! Did you say you came from your world? As in a parallel universe?" Jade queried.  
  
"Yeah, kid, that's what I said!"  
  
"Mom, we're looking at living proof of the theory that there are multiple universes! This is amazing! My favorite theory has been proven!" Jade hopped up and down, excited.  
  
"That's all good, but what do we do with them now? Should we call animal control?"  
  
"No!" Boo exclaimed and ran to Sully and Mike, clinging to them defensively.   
  
"Boo, you don't have to do that!" Sulley said and picked little girl up to hug her.  
  
"I still don't get this!" Boo's mother complained. "And I still don't know what we do with them!"  
  
"Don't worry. I've got an idea. You know how Uncle Gill will get mad if you show up without that new boyfriend you mentioned? Well, what we do is...."  
  
  
  
  
  
6 


	2. Chapter Four: Car Rides and Storytelling

CHAPTER FOUR  
I forgot to put a disclaimer on my last set of chapters, so here it is: I don't own the rights to Monsters, Inc. If I did, I'd be too busy to write this story.  
  
An array of objects was scrounged from various places throughout the house. Jackets, hats, vests, and shoes were all tried on for size and appropriateness. Finally, several outfits made the grade for the odd group's planned disguise. The results were surprisingly good.  
  
"That turned out better than I thought it would," Jade commented about her handiwork.   
  
"Do you really think a coat, a vest, and a couple of hats are really going to fool anyone?" Jade's mother (Iris Woodward) asked.  
  
"They'll fool Uncle Gill, and that's what matters," Jade replied.  
  
"I don't care who it'll fool," Mike said. "I just want to know how long I'll have to wear this stupid thing!"  
  
Sulley and Mike were wearing human clothing to make their true nature less obvious. Sulley was wearing a dark gray wool coat that had belonged to Jade and Boo's Grandfather, and a beat up brown leather hat. He also had gloves on to disguise his furry four-fingered hands; and he had an ancient rubber mask over his face to make his furriness less obvious. Mike's guise was more embarrassing: an old, slightly faded dark blue Boy Scout vest and hat, complete with boondoggle. He was covered with makeup to disguise his green shade and had donned a pair of glasses with a fake nose. The idea was that Sulley was Iris's boyfriend and Mike was his nine- year-old kid. Yeah.  
  
"You'll have to wear it until you can get back," Iris said.  
  
"No! This is so embarrassing! Can you imagine what would happen if Celia saw me like this?" Mike whined piteously.  
  
"She would probably say 'Googely Bear! You look so cute!'" Sulley said, affecting a falsetto tone at his guess of Celia's reaction.  
  
"Real funny, fur ball," Mike replied sarcastically, crossing his arms irritatedly.   
  
"Are we ready to get going?" Jade asked, looking to her mother for the answer.  
  
"Yep. We're as ready as we're ever going to be," she replied.  
  
The bizarre looking entourage made their way into the garage, which was almost un-navigable due to all the stuff stored there. There were boxes, lamps, a broken cooler, a thing that looked to Sulley like a shrunken scream or laugh canister, and a wide array of other objects unidentifiable to the two friendly monsters. The one uncluttered space housed the Woodwards' minivan. A white Dodge Caravan, the van had enough space for all five beings.  
  
They made their way toward the vehicle, argued briefly as to who got to sit in what seat, and piled inside.   
  
"Uh, pardon me, but, where do you get your energy?" Mike blurted randomly.  
  
Jade, in the front passenger seat, leaned back to look at the green being seated behind her mother. "Do you mean how do we fuel our cells or how do we get electricity?"  
  
"Um, the second one." Mike replied doubtfully.  
  
"Oh. We get it a number of ways. My favorites are all driven by nature. You know, by hydropower, wind, and solar power, stuff like that. The most common ones are nuclear power and fossil fuels. They both have their drawbacks; and I especially object to nuclear power. It's cheap and all that, but busting atoms leaves a lot of nasty waste that really damages the environment. I hate that, and it's got to change." Jade explained, but this answer was still too vague for Mike.  
  
"Okay. I didn't understand any of that."  
  
"Eye - yia - yia. Okay. All of it involves turbines which..."   
  
NARRATOR: I, the narrator, will not bore you with repeating all that Jade said. You live in the human world; if you don't know, you can look it up.  
  
By the time Jade finished explaining how humans acquire electricity, they had reached the freeway. So Mike, in his best airline pilot voice announced, "Ladies and Gentlemen, we have now reached our cruising speed of 65 miles per hour. The temperature today is a balmy 73 degrees, with a few scattered clouds. Sit back, relax, and someone bring me a soda."  
  
After the giggles had subsided, Jade inquired "So, how is it you know Mary? I mean, it's obvious you do, but I just don't see how."   
  
"Mary?" Sulley asked. "Who's Mary?"  
  
Boo looked up. "Huh?" She muttered at the furry sweetie that had said her real name.  
  
"Sulley, she's talking about Boo," Mike said, indicating the three year old that sat between him and his best friend.  
  
"Oh. Okay. Can I still call you Boo?"  
  
"Tee hee. Sure, Kitty!"  
  
Sulley told the story, with Mike ad libing with excessive hand gestures at various points. The pair was great raconteurs, with means good storytellers. They had Iris and Jade in fits of laughter, clinging to their seats, and wiping their eyes.  
  
"That was so sweet," Iris said, still sniffling. "Thank you for bringing her back. I was worried sick. I was going to report her missing, but they said I couldn't yet because she hadn't been gone for 48 hours yet."  
  
"Oh, you're welcome," Sulley said. "It was the hardest thing I've ever had to do, but obviously, she belongs here with you."  
  
Suddenly Jade popped a CD into the player.   
  
Boo yelled "Kitty & Mike Wazowski, you two are gonna hear some fantasmagorical human moosic!"   
  
The rest of the trip was full of both commonly known and not-so-well-known musical groups. The two monsters were mesmerized by the Beatles, Elvis, Abba, the Mammas and the Pappas, Bob Marley, Outback (an instrumental group with didgeridoo) and a sampling of other types of music. By the end of the trip everyone was singing "California Dreamin'" and "Yellow Submarine". 


	3. Chapter Five: Enter Clarissa!

CHAPTER FIVE  
  
Clarissa Boggs, anchor- monster for Channel Seven News, strode up to the Monsters, Inc. building with determination. Trailing her was a sound crew, accompanying her to do a televised interview with the two top monsters of the company. She pushed open the glass door and sauntered to the receptionist's desk.  
  
"Monsters, Inc, please hold. Monsters, Inc, yes she is, I'll connect you. Mr. Pauley is on vacation, would you like his voice mail?" The purple receptionist with one blue eye and several bored-looking snakes for hair was saying as Clarissa walked up. The receptionist saw her and turned in her direction. "How may I help you, miss?" the female monster asked politely.   
  
"I'm looking for Mr. Sullivan and Mr. Wazowski. I'm here to interview them for Channel Seven News," Clarissa said in a no-nonsense tone.  
  
The receptionist, Celia Mae, did not immediately respond. The monster in front of her bore such a resemblance to Randall, who used to work at the company, that she had a difficult time keeping her wits about her. Clarissa was a few inches shorter than Celia remembered Randall being, had a narrower face, eyelashes, and her foremost frond dangled forward instead of back. Otherwise, she looked just like him. Her voice was even a feminine replica of his.  
  
When her head cleared, Celia remembered the appointment that Clarissa come for. "Oh, yes," she said. "Follow me please."  
  
Clarissa and her crew followed Celia to laugh floor F, where Sulley and Mike were supposed to be. But neither of them were there.  
  
"Fungus," Celia called. "Where're Sulley and Mike?"  
  
"I saw them head that way," a furry orange monster named George Sanderson said, pointing to a hallway.  
  
"Thank you, George," Celia replied. "This way please."  
  
The odd procession meandered to a secluded section of the building where the simulator set was located. The simulator had a working door station. Mike had told Celia about fixing Boo's door for Sulley. She went to the door station, expecting to see Boo's door there, with its indicator light aglow. What she saw instead was an empty steel frame with pieces of painted wood scattered at its base.  
  
"Eek!" Celia squeaked.   
  
"What? Why did you stop?" an irritated Clarissa demanded. She didn't wait for an answer and just pushed her way past Celia. "Oh my gosh," she said. "There weren't any monsters in there, were there?"  
  
"Googely Bear," Celia whispered, kneeling by the fragments of wooden door on the floor.  
  
Clarissa turned to her crew. "Gentlemen, we are still doing a newscast. But we're doing it on this," she said, indicating the collapsed door.  
  
"They were in there," Celia sobbed.  
  
"Who?" Clarissa interrogated.   
  
"Sulley and Mike," Celia said, on the verge of histerics. "The ones you were going to interview."  
  
"Oh!" exclaimed Clarissa. "This will be most interesting news to cast. Crew, set up here."  
  
While the news crew set up, Clarissa mused to herself. She found it ironic and quite fitting that the monsters responsible for banishing her brother should now be stuck in the human world themselves. 


	4. Chapter Six: Of Randall and Trish

CHAPTER SIX  
  
Meanwhile, Randall was not having the kind of fun in the human world that Sulley and Mike were. And let me tell you, nine months as Gill Bates' pet (and being named Stinky) was not exactly a party. But Gill had a daughter, and she made things more bearable.  
  
It started two months after Gill had purchased Randall, thinking he was an exotic-looking alligator. Randall had been lugged around in Gill's car almost endlessly, and he began to wonder if the human cars worked the same way as cars in Monstropolis. He snuck into the garage late one night to find out.  
  
Gill's car, a very well kept, magenta '56 Thunderbird, was an entertaining machine to explore. Randall had a degree in mechanical engineering; that was why Mr. Waternoose had picked him to build the scream extractor. He found the process of a human car burning gasoline for fuel fascinating. He was examining a spark plug when Gill's daughter, Trish, meandered into the pristine garage that housed the well-kept machine .  
  
Trish, an attractive 20 year-old redhead in college, stared at Randall, dumbstruck for a moment, not unlike how Iris Woodward had stared at Sulley and Mike. Randall felt as though he was being watched and turned around. He saw Trish standing in the doorway that connected the garage to the house, put the spark plug back, and shut the car's hood. He looked at her, unsure as to what she was going to do. Finally, after what seemed like ages, Trish found her voice.  
  
"What are you doing?" she queried, not accusingly, but curiously.   
  
"Uh, just seeing how your dad's car worked," Randall said quietly. Blushing in the presence of this stunning young woman. When Randall blushed, he turned a hot pink.  
  
"Oh," Trish murmured softly, and sat down. "I didn't expect an answer."  
  
"I didn't mean to startle you. I guess I thought that since you saw me with my head in a car you would assume I could talk."  
  
Trish looked at him. She had not considered what she had taken to be a mutant alligator to be intelligent. "Do you have a name besides the one Dad gave you?" She asked.  
  
"Yeah. Name's Randall Boggs," he replied, extending his uppermost right hand to the frightened young woman. "I'm not an alligator, by the way."  
  
"I figured that out," Trish commented, shaking hands with the bizarre creature. "But what are you?"  
  
"A monster."  
  
"Don't degrade yourself like that. It must be bad enough to be Dad's pet."  
  
"No, really! When you were a kid, did you ever believe that you had a monster in your closet?"  
  
"Yeah. Why?"  
  
Randall explained the entire thing, from the fact that he was from a parallel universe to the incident that had led to his banishment.   
  
"So you see what I meant when I said I was a monster?"  
  
Trish merely nodded. This exchange between monster and woman led to a strong friendship.  
  
At the same time when Sulley and Mike were discovered in the Woodward home, a bustle of cleaning and cooking was going down at the Bates' mansion.  
  
"My wife's sister is on her way today. I want everything spick and span for when she and my nieces arrive," Gill said by way of instruction. "I'm leaving for the office in ten minutes to finish some work before the weekend. I'll be back at 3:00. I want everything done by then. Also, I want special attention paid to the guesthouse, where they'll be staying." Gill grabbed a choke collar and leash from a hook on the wall. Trish and Randall both knew what it was for.  
  
"Dad, don't take Stinky today," she said, referring to Randall by the name Gill had given him. "Hardly anyone is going to be there today. Just leave him here; I'll keep him from being underfoot."  
  
"Alright, pumpkin. Make him be good," Gill said, giving his daughter a kiss on the cheek. "You're all dismissed," he stated, then grasping his bag, headed out the door.  
  
"Well, come on, Lizard Boy," Trish commanded tenderly. "Let's do some web surfing before my relatives arrive."  
  
As Trish headed off, Randall slunk, bewildered, at her heels. 


	5. Chapter Seven: The Gang Arrives

CHAPTER SEVEN  
  
"We're almost there, guys," Iris informed her passengers. "We should see it right about.... now."  
  
The white minivan gracefully turned a corner, in an affluent neighborhood, to face a large wrought iron gate set in a tall brick wall. The gables of the massive mansion within could be seen peeking over the wall with their red Spanish tile roofs piercing the afternoon sky.  
  
"Whoa!" Mike exclaimed, "Your uncle lives here?"  
  
"Yup. He's got over 10 million and spends his money like Scrooge at a Christmas party." Jade remarked sardonically.  
  
The car pulled up to the enormous gate. Iris rolled down her window and pressed a button on the little thingy next to the gate.   
  
"Who are you and what do you want?" an irritated voice shrouded by static came through the machine.  
  
"It's me, Dan," Iris said into the intercom box. "I think you know why we're here." She smiled at the seriousness of the guard.  
  
"Oh. We'll let you in right away, Mrs. Woodward," came the distorted reply. The gates swung open, allowing access up the winding drive to Gill's gargantuan abode.   
  
The group pulled up to the front of the goliath white marble steps. A little man in a navy blue suit stepped out from behind the huge oak front doors and hopped down the shiny steps to the van. He opened the doors for the odd group with a flourish.  
  
"Welcome," the little man said cheerfully.   
  
"Hey, talk about getting the royal treatment!" Mike expressed, pleased. "Oh, thanks, buddy!" He said to the little chauffer to show his appreciation.   
  
"Come this way. Mr. Bates is at work currently, so you will be received by his daughter," the shrimp in the blue suit informed the group.  
  
"Yippee. A welcoming committee headed by the ultimate brat," Jade said moodily, her voice dripping with sarcasm.  
  
Meanwhile, inside, Randall and Trish were having fun reading stories on the Internet called "Fan Fictions". They were currently exploring a section on a very popular children's book about a very popular little boy....not of the "muggle" variety.   
  
"Look at this guy's bio!" Randall said. "He's seventeen and writing stories about a kid's book!"  
  
"Watch it. I've got a story posted here," Trish said in the author's defense.  
  
The intercom, attached to the wall next to Trish's bedroom door, squawked.  
  
"Hey, Trish. This is Dan at the guard gate. Your relatives arrived early. You're going to have to receive them."  
  
Trish looked at Randall. He gazed blankly back at her and gulped.  
  
"I have to wear the collar?" he said, clearly not looking forward to it. He so loathed the thought so much, in fact, that he made himself green.  
  
Trish smiled at him. "I promise I won't yank you," she said, fondling his front frond affectionately.  
  
Randall sighed. "Kay. I'll wear it. But I'm only doing it so your relatives don't freak out."  
  
Swallowing his pride, Randall slipped the choke collar over his head and followed Trish, who held the leash and the accursed collar. The pair made their way into the cavernous foyer, where the odd group waited.  
  
"This place is huge! I'd get lost just finding the bathroom!" a high voice, oddly familiar to Randall, drifted down the hall. He recognized the voice and cringed. It was Mike Wazowski.   
  
Randall stopped dead in his tracks. Wazowski? Here? He was close to panic. If Wazowski saw him like this, he would never be able to live it down.  
  
"I'm not going in there," Randall whispered frantically.  
  
"You're coming, and that's that!" Trish commanded, giving the leash a not-so-slight tug.  
  
When the couple got to the foyer, however, his pride was the last thing on his mind. Wazowski and Sullivan were both there, and in nothing less than the most hilarious disguises Randall had ever seen. But he didn't really care about that. He was more concerned with the little brown-haired girl that he, himself, had tried to kidnap a year before.  
  
And worse, she was looking right at him. She marched up to him and roared, completely unafraid of this thing that had once terrified her.  
  
Mike noticed the girl's behavior. He walked up to her to pull her away. "Hey, kid, playing with dangerous animals isn't a good...eek!" The green thing that was painted pink jumped backwards, pulling the girl with him. He stepped up to Sulley and tugged on his coat sleeve.  
  
Trish and Iris didn't notice any of this. They were busy with introductions.  
  
"This is James and his son, Mike," Iris said to Trish.  
  
"Nice to meet you," Sulley said, and then noticed Mike pulling violently at the wool coat he had on. "What is it, Mike?"  
  
"It's him," Mike said, stabbing his finger in Randall's general direction.  
  
"Oh," Trish said, knowing what Mike meant. "That's dad's pet alligator, Stinky. Say hello, Stinky!"  
  
Randall just glared at Trish. Oh, the humiliation!  
  
"Come this way. Dan will get your luggage for you," Trish said in a friendly voice and began walking toward the guesthouse, with Randall performing an amazing slither / trot at her side.  
  
"He moves rather fast for a cold-blooded reptile with prehistoric ancestors," Jade commented scientifically.   
  
"You really need to get a life, Jade," Trish commented meanly. 


	6. Chapter Eight: Randall Appologizes

CHAPTER EIGHT  
  
"I can't believe Randall's here!" Mike said for the twelfth time.  
  
"Really? I think you don't believe this Randall fellow's here!" Jade expressed her annoyance. She calmed down a bit and looked puzzled. "Who is he again?"  
  
"The one who took your sister, genius!" Mike snapped at the fourteen year old.  
  
"Well, excuse me for not being 'in' on the whole thing," she said with attitude. "It's not my fault that I was too tied up with school to join your little mixed up adventure."  
  
"Will you two cut it out? You've been at it for an hour," Sulley said from the floor, where he had been playing with Mary. "I don't know about anyone else, but it's really beginning to get annoying."  
  
Mary nodded in agreement. Sully chuckled and continued playing hide-and- seek with the little girl in very much the same way he had in the bathroom with her a year before.minus the "Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum" part.  
  
"I can't believe Sullivan and Wazowski are here!" Randall exclaimed in confidence to Trish. "I just can't get over it!"  
  
"I don't mean to sound snippy, Randall, but I get the idea. I just think you're making a mountain out of a molehill," Trish said matter-of-factly.  
  
"Don't you see? If they're here, then Monsters Inc. didn't go belly up, and all the scare doors are operational. If Wazowski and Sullivan are here, that means I can slip though one of the doors when a monster goes in to scare a kid; then I'll be home!" he explained enthusiastically, rocking back and forth from front pair of feet to back.  
  
"Will you quit rocking like that? You're making me seasick," Trish moaned a little, half from nausea and half from irritation.  
  
"Sorry. Say, you're looking about Wazowski's shade."  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"Wazowski's green," he said informatively.  
  
"He looked pretty pink to me."  
  
"They must've covered him in something," the purple lizard said with a shrug.  
  
How odd he looks when he shrugs, Trish thought. His shrug ripples from his top arms to his lower ones. An unfamiliar emotion suddenly hit Trish. He's leaving, she thought, stricken.  
  
"How long will you stay?" she asked the weird creature she had come to care for.  
  
"As long as Sullivan and Wazowski do, I guess. I no longer have my access key to the building and my plan is to sneak in when they do; that way, I can hide behind Sullivan's Monsterous bulk. Why do you ask?"  
  
"Just concerned.I mean - wondering," she said, twirling a strand of red hair around her finger, and trying to look casual.  
  
Randall stared into Trish's blue eyes and saw that she didn't want him to go. He wanted to return home, but he didn't want to leave one thing - Trish.  
  
Randall sighed. He'd miss her.  
  
"You know, I remember how snappish and creepy you were when we first started talking to each other." Trish said with a nostalgic smile. "You freaked me out a couple times, and I got really mad at you. You got mad at me, too and said I was a brat. Then we began working on each other to be more pleasant. I think, at least for you, it worked."  
  
"Trish, you have no idea how much you've improved," Randall said. He was going to say more, but his throat caught. He'd never imagined feeling this way about anyone, especially not a human.  
  
The intercom beeped and Dan's voice came on.  
  
"Hey, folks! Mr. Bates is home! Look sharp!"  
  
It beeped off. Trish stroked Randall tenderly. "I don't want you to go," she said, and picked up his collar. When she looked at Randall again, she had tears in her eyes.  
  
"Trish, don't cry. You're dad's home, and we can't have him see you crying because his mutant gator is running away," Randall said as he wiped a tear out of her eye.  
  
She smiled a bit at his phrasing of the situation. "You're right. Dad hates 'mushiness.' Come on, he'll want you in your kennel."  
  
"Oh, yeah."  
  
In Monstropolis, at ten p.m., Randall's twin sister, Clarissa, lay on the bed in her apartment watching herself on the news.  
  
"A tragic emergency has arisen here today," Clarissa told the camera. "The CEO of Monsters, Inc., James P. Sullivan, and the company's top Comedian, Michael Wazowski, have somehow gotten trapped in the human world. Experts are assessing the situation to determine the amount of danger these two monsters may be in. A group of volunteers are attempting to reconstruct the unstable door in which Sullivan and Wazowski have so unfortunately been trapped."  
  
She watched with a mix of pride and disgust. Pride, because she was the only reporter who was allowed on the scene and was therefore on every news channel. Disgust, because she came off as completely sappy. It made her want to barf.  
  
She wished that she had been an only child for the umpteenth time in her life. If she had been, there would have been no sibling competition for the Scarer position, and she would have had a nobler calling, not this stupid job. She'd show them what she could do more efficiently than her weak brother could. Oh, how she would show them.  
  
Deciding it would be impossible to set her plan in action on no sleep, she turned off the T.V. and flopped unceremoniously into her bed.  
  
  
  
That night, at about two in the morning, Randall slithered into the guesthouse camouflaged, to have a little chat with his former enemies.  
  
In the guesthouse, Randall discerned two snores, one high and loud, the other low and soft. There was a light on in one room; the other was dark. The reptile slunk off toward the darkened room, hoping Sullivan would be there. He was so focused that he didn't notice Boo exiting the lighted room.  
  
She tripped over him on her way to the bathroom. She uttered a startled cry and kicked in his general direction. By luck, she stuck her foot violently into Randall's green eye. He yelped and turned a vibrant neon blue with pink spots, which was secretly his favorite color scheme.  
  
The rest of the guesthouse's occupants heard his yelp and Mary's cry, notifying them that something was going on. They naturally came to check it out, which is not what Randall intended. "Drat", he thought, much peeved. "I had wanted to keep this low key."  
  
Jade came into the guesthouse living room first, wielding a large copy of Moby Dick she had been reading. Wazowski came after her, armed with the latest issue of a science magazine he had chosen to occupy himself with. Sullivan came in armed with nothing but himself. Iris followed him, with Mary's blanket rolled up and at the ready.  
  
"Randall!" Sulley exclaimed upon seeing the cause of the disturbance. "What are you doing in here? And at two in the morning?"  
  
"Coming to say I was sorry," he said, shuffling his foremost foot on the ground shyly.  
  
"For what?" Sulley asked "For worrying this woman out of her mind when you tried to kidnap her youngest daughter?"  
  
"Pardon me?" Randall asked, taken aback. He had expected to be told off for ruining Sullivan's and Wazowski's lives, not for driving some human into a panic.  
  
"Sull, he doesn't know!" Mike exclaimed, laughing. Sulley soon joined his best friend in a cascade of comforting giggles.  
  
Randall was confused, befuddled, and bemused. "What?" he asked. "Why are you laughing?"  
  
"Some things happened after we threw you through that door, Randall," Sulley said.  
  
"No kidding! I got knocked out with a shovel, attacked by alligators, put in a cage, fed bugs, and purchased by a millionaire to scare his employees," the self-appointed "Lizard King" replied.  
  
"Yeesh. That must've sucked," Mike said. "Anyway, Lizard Boy, some things happened on our side of the closet door. Number one: Waternoose got arrested by the CDA."  
  
"Oh. Who took over? Someone must have taken over. Otherwise, you wouldn't have had any power to get a door working, so you and Sullivan wouldn't be here."  
  
"Good point. I was getting there. Ahem. Number two: that little girl you tried to kidnap showed us that laughter is ten times more powerful than screams."  
  
"Wow. I never would have guessed."  
  
Mike blinked. "You're taking this awfully well," he commented. "Where were we? Oh yeah. Number three: Sulley is the new owner and CEO of Monsters, Inc."  
  
Randall's mouth fell open. "How'd that happen?" he asked, floored.  
  
"I introduced laughter as a replacement for screams," Sulley said, speaking up for the first time. "Since it's ten times more powerful, the energy crisis, at least for Monstropolis, disappeared."  
  
"Didn't the Board of Directors try to stop you?" Randall asked. Knowing how set in their ways the members of the Board were, Randall was shocked that his old nemeses had succeeded.  
  
"The energy crisis had gotten so bad that they were willing to try our proposed method. We had some difficulties, like the exploding canisters, in the beginning, but we fixed them."  
  
"Exploding canisters?"  
  
"Yeah. We tried to use the scream canisters for laughs but they didn't have the right capacity, so we use larger ones now."  
  
"Dang. You know, I thought the incident would've ruined your lives, not made them better." Randall pondered.  
  
"You know, you really should apologize to Boo's mother," Sulley said. "She just about lost her marbles when Boo disappeared."  
  
"Who's Boo?" Randall asked, befuddled.  
  
Jade, with the air of someone giving a lecture about endangered animals, replied to Randall, "Also known as Mary Woodward and as Fluzzy, Boo is the little girl you tried to kidnap, apparently. And she is also my little sister,"  
  
"And you are.?" Randall asked, liking to know whom he was communicating with.  
  
"Jade Woodward, Queen of the Freaks," she responded. "I also go by Poofiemus."  
  
"I'm Randall Boggs. I go by Randall."  
  
"I figured that out, actually."  
  
Randall gave Jade a look that she recognized as one accusing her of insanity, which was a typical reaction when people first met her. The reptile didn't care what she thought of him and simply wanted to get away from the Queen of Freaks as soon as he could. He turned to Iris.  
  
"Ma'am, I'm really sorry I kidnapped your daughter. Before I got stuck here, I had no idea humans were intelligent, or that they had, um, what's the term."  
  
"Complex emotions," Jade supplied.  
  
"Thanks. Complex emotions. I wouldn't have done it if I had known that, at least, I wouldn't now. Anyway, I'm sorry."  
  
"That's okay. You're paying for it through the nose, anyhow." Iris said, pitying the eight-legged creature.  
  
"No kidding."  
  
"Are you into science at all?" Jade interrogated unexpectedly.  
  
"Not really, no. Just cars."  
  
"Drat. I was hoping to discuss the theory of cosmic inflation with someone."  
  
Randall took a step backwards. Not many people could scare Randall, but Jade was unintentionally succeeding. No wonder she calls herself the Queen of Freaks, he thought to himself. The only person freakier was his own deranged sister.  
  
"I should probably get going," Randall said, stealing a glance at the clock. "Gill gets up disgustingly early, even on holidays. The first thing he does every day is drag me across the property at five a.m., and I'd like to drag him around for once."  
  
"That sound like it'll be funny to watch," Jade said, smirking. "I'll be watching through the nearest available window."  
  
"Yippee, I have an audience," Randall said sarcastically. "See you later."  
  
"Catch you later, Randall," Sulley said  
  
Randall waved and slipped into near invisibility, finally able to leave his past behind.  
  
Author's Notes: Okay. I, as the author, have not said much about myself. I would like to thank my friend Shichan Goddess for introducing me to Fan Fiction, and for showing me that even kids can be writers. I would also like to thank my mother for being my editor-in-chief, first critic, and my chief encourager. I'd like to thank everyone who has reviewed this story thus far. You've all been very kind, and your reviews are appreciated. By the way, it was my dad's idea for me not to accept anonymous reviews, for security reasons. I want to thank my freaky dog, Ferrari, for keeping me company while I write.  
  
As to the story itself, (*sung to the end of "Stars and Stripes Forever"*) ? ? ".well, you may think that this is the end.but, it's not. ? ?  
  
Yours truly,  
  
Poofiemus 


	7. Chapter Nine: Randall's Failed Romance a...

CHAPTER NINE  
  
Trish sat in her bedroom smelling the delectable scents of Thanksgiving dinner in the making. Thanksgiving, for some reason, was one of her favorite holidays. But suddenly, amidst the visions of turkey and cranberry dancing in her head, a vision of Randall popped up. She couldn't help but think that Randall must be miserable at this particular moment, smelling all this food from his kennel next to the kitchen and being forbidden to eat any of it. She stood up and went downstairs to see her eight-legged lizard friend.  
  
"Hey, Reptile-Dude," she said as she entered the room where his kennel was. The kennel, located on the ground floor next to the pantry, was basically a wire fence pen, half of it inside the house and the other half extending outside to the yard. In the cooler months, Randall had taken to staying in the inside portion due to his being cold-blooded. He saw her come in, but did not greet her in return. He was shivering.  
  
"Are you OK?" Trish asked, concerned. "You look like you just came out of Siberia."  
  
"I fff-feel like it," he stuttered, teeth chattering. "It's 52 degrees in here!"  
  
Trish looked at the room's thermostat. Sure enough, it was 52 degrees Fahrenheit in the room. She turned the setting up. "How'd you know? You got the temp right to the degree."  
  
"L-lucky guess," he answered, still freezing his now-ice-blue tail off.  
  
"It'll warm up in a minute," she told him. "You can go back to normal color now, you know."  
  
"Too bad, I feel like being ice blue at the moment." he said. His shivering had already abated. "Jeez, I'm starving. I wish I could have dinner with you. I'm sick of kibble."  
  
"I bet," Trish agreed. "You know what? We always have tons of leftovers at Thanksgiving. I'll sneak you some, okay?"  
  
"Thanks! I haven't had any real food since the moldy, leftover pizza the gator catcher slipped me," he said appreciatively.  
  
Trish reached over the kennel's fence and stroked Randall's fronds. He took her hand and rubbed it against his cheek.  
  
"I'm glad you're friends with me," he said, meaning it. But at the same time wondering what on Earth had come over him.  
  
Trish just smiled in response. "I'll see you later, Randall," she said, and headed outside.  
  
*********************************************************************** ******* Sulley, Mike, Boo, Jade, and Iris were seated outside at a patio table in the mansion's back yard. The morning was brisk at 52 degrees (like Randall said, but they were all warm blooded and didn't mind too much), with scattered wispy clouds and a light breeze in the trees. The smell of food carried to them, tantalizing their senses.  
  
"That food smells soooo good!" Mike said. "I'm drooling."  
  
"That's nice, Mike," Sulley said sarcastically.  
  
Mike simply rolled his eye. "You're probably drooling too, pal. Under that mask, no one can see it. Hey, what're we having, anyway? Do you think they're serving Tentacles A L'Orange?"  
  
"Turkey with bread dressing, cranberry sauce, corn pudding-," Jade began, but was cut off by her mother.  
  
"Acorn squash, homemade rolls-," Iris said dreamily.  
  
"And sweet 'tatoes and pum'kin pie!" Boo cut in, excited.  
  
Mike and Sulley had blank expressions (at least, Mike did; everyone figured Sull had one on under his mask). "I guess it would sound good if we knew what any of that was," Sulley said to Mike. The green sphere covered in pink merely nodded, for once without any response.  
  
Sulley sat up straight and poked Mike. "By the way, buddy, what was that show you were watching this morning with those little, fat colored guys with grey squares in their stomachs?"  
  
"Somthin' called Teletubbies," Mike responded.  
  
"Teletubbies?!" Jade exclaimed. "Teletubbies are evil!"  
  
"I thought it was kinda cute," Mike told her.  
  
"Ew!" Boo said.  
  
"See?" Jade said. "That show's meant for kids her age, and even she doesn't like them!"  
  
"Sor-ry," Mike retorted. "I just can't help it if it reminded me of the shows I watched when I was little."  
  
"You watched stuff like that?" Sulley asked his best friend, surprised.  
  
Just after that moment, Trish meandered out to the patio. "Hiya, guys. Little nippy today, isn't it?" she said.  
  
No one responded; they simply stared at her, though each for a different reason. Sulley didn't want to blow his cover by saying he was quite warm; Mike had been about to make a smart-aleck response but decided that he might offend Trish and get himself thrown out; Iris, Jade, and Boo were startled by how nice she was being and were rendered speechless.  
  
Trish, however, misinterpreted their silence and thought they had found out about her relationship with Randall and were shunning her for it. "I can explain!" she blurted. "I found RandallonenightlookingatDad'scarandstartedtalkingtohimandnowwe'rereally closefriends!" She spilled her story, leaving her audience stunned and herself panting.  
  
"You're friends with Randall?!" Mike exclaimed. "Don't you know what he tried to do?!"  
  
"Yes! He told me the whole story. His boss asked him to engineer something to fix your energy crisis. He made a machine called a Scream Extractor and tried to kidnap a little girl to test it, but she got loose and somehow you two wound up with her. You tried to get her home and he tried to stop you, and you threw him into the gator-catcher's trailer in the Everglades," she explained what she knew. "He feels really bad about it now. Please, he's not the same guy you knew. Forgive him, please." Trish got tears in her eyes.  
  
"Guess who he tried to kidnap, Trish," Jade said.  
  
Trish thought a second, and then burst out laughing. "Mary. He-he tried to take Mary." She apparently thought this was absolutely hilarious. "No wonder he had such a hard time!"  
  
"Huh?" Sulley asked, puzzled.  
  
"She is going to be the next Houdini," explained Jade. "She is quite an escape artist and can sneak about so quickly that it seems she is teleporting. It's a rare person that can accomplish the level she has, and she's only 3 years old!"  
  
"You're kidding," Mike said, not believing.  
  
"I'm not," Jade responded. "It's a talent that usually makes her really tired. You must have interested her enough to keep her awake all that time she was in your care."  
  
"This furry thing and his one-eyed spherical pal not interest her? They're so odd they've been quite a challenge to disguise." Iris commented.  
  
"It's a good thing Dad doesn't think that anything unusual ever happens to him at home. Otherwise, you two oddballs would be screwed," Trish said. "Those costumes wouldn't convince him otherwise."  
  
" 'Spose so," Sulley said. "It's remarkable Boo's disguise fooled anyone at the company."  
  
Mike snorted. "I'm shocked that you'd even admit it."  
  
A bell rang. "FOOD!" Jade and Trish exclaimed simultaneously. Every being scrambled to be first inside, eager to sample the year's Thanksgiving delights, even if the tentacles were omitted.  
  
*********************************************************************** ** Clarissa stood in front of the camera in the Monster's, Inc. building for the second day in a row. A bunch of monsters, some of whom were named George Sanderson, Fungus, Celia Mae, and Thaddeus Bile (who went by "Phlegm"), had carefully put all the pieces of the shattered door back together for the second time, only to find twenty pieces or so were missing.  
  
"Oh no!" a greenish slug-like teenage monster with braces named Smitty exclaimed despairingly. "Some pieces are disappeared!"  
  
A yellow squash-shaped monster named Needleman smacked Smitty on the back of the head. "You idiot! They're lost, not 'disappeared'!"  
  
Clarissa rolled her aquamarine eyes. She considered every last one of them a moron in the extreme. The sooner Sullivan and Wazowski returned, however, the sooner she could set her plan into action. In the meantime, she'd have to put up with these paramount lamebrains.  
  
Into the room strode a female, two-legged monster covered in almost- black purple fur and wearing the white coat of a door-synthesis technician. She had about her a business-like air. Clarissa disliked her instantly.  
  
"Pardon me," the purple monster said politely, looking past her dragon- like nose at the group on the floor. "I'm Michelle Price from the door synthesis department. I think that, if you could spare a piece, I could make a new copy of that door." She brushed back some blonde hair from the section of long, paler fur on top of her head and tried to put it behind her fox-like tufted ears, waiting for an answer.  
  
The three-eyed, backward-kneed, burgundy monster dubbed Fungus pushed up his square glasses and said, "Let's see. We're missing a few pieces anyway, and this obviously isn't working, yeah, I think we should try it."  
  
The other monsters that were helping him nodded in agreement. The blue creature with purple tentacles that went by Phlegm picked up a fragment of the door, coincidentally the one Sulley had saved from when the door had originally been shredded, and handed it to Michelle.  
  
"Thank you," Michelle said, as she turned on heel and left, her long, tufted tail swishing behind her and leaving purple and blue sparklies in its wake.  
  
Clarissa watched her leave, resisting the urge to trip Michelle by pulling on the camera cables strewn about the floor. Why Clarissa disliked kindly monsters like Michelle, not even her mother knew. All Clarissa know was that she had to be the top dog at whatever she was doing. However, yakking in front of a camera all day brought her no satisfaction in this department. She had a few ideas to mold her present situation to get herself some real power.  
  
Apparently, her brother, Randall, had set up a secret lab in the factory. She pulled Randall's former assistant, Fungus, aside.  
  
"Listen, Fungus, I've got a plan. But I need to know where my brother's little lab is. And you're going to tell me."  
  
"I don't know what you're talking about," Fungus whimpered.  
  
"Uh-huh. Sure." Clarissa stated sarcastically, the way her brother had a habit of doing. Strangely this scared the unfortunate Fungus into complying.  
  
"Okay! I'll show you. But not while anyone is around."  
  
"Excellent! Meet me here at quarter after midnight." Clarissa the Cheater instructed, chuckling evilly at her success. *********************************************************************** *** Sulley and Mike, Mary and Jade, Iris, Gill, Gill's wife Rose, and Trish sat down in the dining room, ready to eat the aromatic food beautifully displayed at the table. Almost ready to eat...  
  
"I think we should have one of our guests say grace," Rose Bates suggested.  
  
"I think Mike should say it," Trish suggested to her mother.  
  
"Okay!" Mike said. He sat up straight, folded his hand, and cleared his throat. Then he hollered "GRACE!" loud enough to wake the dead and shoveled some turkey onto his plate with fervor.  
  
Gill glared at Mike, turning red with offended fury. His wife Rose looked like she was watching a monster commit murder (in a way, she was- she didn't know Mike really was a monster. And it did look like he was committing murder, the way he was tearing the poor turkey to shreds). Trish was laughing silently, along with all the others at the table.  
  
"Randall would've enjoyed that," Trish said to no one in particular.  
  
Gill turned his glare to Trish. "Who's Randall?" He asked her.  
  
Uh-oh. This could be bad, she thought "Um.," She began to think quickly. Hmm. Trish, being a college architecture student, came up with a reply. "He's in my computer blueprinting class," She said mendaciously, rather pleased with herself.  
  
"Is this Randall fellow your boyfriend?" Gill asked, wanting to keep track of his daughter.  
  
"No," Trish answered, a little too shyly. It made her sound guilty.  
  
"You tell this Randall that if I catch him anywhere near here I'll set my alligator Stinky on him," Gill reprimanded warningly, wagging his fork at her.  
  
Trish forgot her lie and snorted at her father's comment. "I don't see how you can set him on himself," she said, and stopped herself from saying any more by literally biting her tongue, hoping nobody caught her mistake. Unfortunately, they all did, and were staring back at her.  
  
"Repeat that please?" Gill interrogated, leaning closer to Trish threateningly. "What - did - you- say???"  
  
"Nothing," she answered quickly.  
  
"I believe you did." Gill said, looking Trish in the eye. "Follow me to the kennel." He beckoned to his daughter and stood up. Trish followed meekly, the rest of the group trailing after her worriedly.  
  
The group entered the kennel to see Randall inside with a book open in his hands. If Trish hadn't already screwed up, he would have been busted anyhow for being caught reading To Kill A Mockingbird. He was so absorbed in Scout Finch's adventures that he didn't notice the congregation make their entrance.  
  
Gill saw the book and grabbed it out of Randall hands. When Randall looked up at him, Gill grabbed his fronds and pulled him to his feet.  
  
"Ouch," Randall muttered, rubbing his fronds gently when Gill let go. Then he saw his audience for the first time, and guessed that his cat was out of the proverbial bag. He looked at the face of his beloved Trish and knew who told on him.  
  
Trish looked back at him and got tears in her eyes. "Randall, I'm sorry. It- I just slipped." She was sobbing. It nearly broke Randall's heart to see her so upset.  
  
"Have you been having an affair with my daughter?" Gill asked forcefully, getting Randall's attention. The absurdity of this questions caused Sulley and Mike to snicker before it turned into loud gaffaws.  
  
"N- no! We're friends. Just friends. I think," he said, and looked at Trish. "I do have very strong feelings for Trish, I must admit, but I never acted on them because I was afraid I would loose her friendship. Sir, she's the only friend I've got, and really the only true friend I've ever had." Randall walked up to Trish and took her hands in his uppermost pair. "I love you, Trish. I really, truly love you."  
  
Poor Randall. There he was, pouring his heart out, and Trish spooked. She pulled her hands from his grasp and backed away, shaking her head.  
  
"Trish," Randall called quietly, desperately. He reached out to her, but she turned around and pushed her way past Sully and Iris, running away in tears.  
  
Randall's vision blurred with sudden, painful tears. He really couldn't help it. It was the first time he had ever experienced heartbreak. It wasn't pleasant. It felt as though his heart was being minced by an herb knife and squashed by a garlic press before being thrown into the soup. All the room's occupants were staring at him.  
  
"What're you looking at?!" he hollered. "I already feel awful. I don't need you making me feel worse!" with that, turned a sickly ash grey and slumped to the floor in a tangled, pallid lump. He sobbed with no way of stopping himself. The assembly slowly trickled away, until the only ones left were Sulley and Mike.  
  
Mike's romantic experiences with his girlfriend Celia helped him to understand Randall's feelings. "Hey, Randall," the one-eyed orb called.  
  
"What do you want, Wazowski?" the depressed reptile said curtly.  
  
"Look, Randall, I know what you're going through, and it isn't easy," Mike said. "But you've got to stick it out, and get on with your life. Heck, she may even come around, once she gets over being upset and sees past her own surprise."  
  
"What d'you mean?"  
  
"Sometimes when you say The Three Words for the first time, a girl'll spook, 'specially if no one's said it to her before. You know, they don't know how to take it. Besides, she was reeling from her dad's mortification."  
  
"But did she have to look at me like that? Like I was vermin?"  
  
"Coulda been worse."  
  
"Oh really?"  
  
"Sure. When I first told Celia I loved her, she hit me with her purse."  
  
Randall snorted. He thought that was kind of funny, when he pictured the snake-haired receptionist beating the green creature with a handbag, especially since Celia was taller than Mike by about two-and- a-half feet.  
  
"And Celia looked at me like I'd just bitten her. Her snakes too. You know, they hissed and rattled at me, they were so mad."  
  
Mike's humor was getting to Randall. The lizard was back to his normal color and smiling.  
  
Sulley was smiling too. "So that's what you meant when you said 'women! Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em.' You know, Randall, he came to work the next day with these huge teal bruises the size of large toads all over his body. I teased him the whole day."  
  
Randall was laughing now. "I don't know why I hated you, Sullivan. You're a witty guy. Maybe you're winning streak reminded me of my sister."  
  
"You have a sister?" Sulley asked, surprised.  
  
"Twin sister, actually. Named Clarissa. She and I were really competitive growing up. We competed for grades, and entered every competition we could. Early on, Clarissa beat me easily. I worked my tail off to best her. By the fifth grade, I began to beat her at home and in lower levels of competition. She didn't like it. She was as good as she was going to get, though, so she resorted to cheating. She wrote her toughest words on her hands at the spelling bee, hid a map under her chair in the geography bee, weighted my racquet in the school tennis match, and pulled tons of other tricks to make sure she won." Randall complained  
  
"The worst blow, though, was the dancing competition. I had signed up in a different region from Clarissa so I wouldn't have to deal with her. We didn't compete in the same contest until we both made the nationals."  
  
"You were in a national dancing competition?!" Mike exclaimed, startled.  
  
"Yep. National Junior Dance Competition. We were seniors in high school then. When I got there, I had a winning dance set to a swing jazz song called "In the Mood". Everyone else had disco."  
  
Mike interrupted again. "What difference would it make if you had a different kind of music?"  
  
Randall, a little irked by Mike's interruptions, explained. "The judges would be sick of disco and therefore would like mine better, and I'd stand out. Besides, this one jazz song really let me show off my dancing and choreography skills. Clarissa knew I had her beat. Dumb girl picked "Dancing Queen", not only a disco song but also a popular disco song, a song that five other competitors used. I practiced my dance for five hours before my turn, and decided to take a break and get some food. Clarissa took the opportunity and switched my disc for hers, so I had "Dancing Queen" and she had "In the Mood". I had only seven minutes before I was up. I knew Clarissa had taken it but I had to make due with what I had. I did my best, but only achieved second place. Clarissa received first place, using my song. She flaunted it in my face for years. When I made scarer at the company, she finally shut up. She's a news reporter on Channel Seven now."  
  
Sulley looked at his old rival with newfound respect. "You had to put up with a cheater for a sister for all those years?" he said. "No wonder you despised me. I barely tried to be a top scarer and nearly broke the scare record. You probably assumed I cheated, like your sister."  
  
Randall nodded. "When the little girl got through, Wazowski claimed I had been cheating. I nearly killed him."  
  
"Call me Mike," the cycloptic creature said.  
  
"And call me Sulley," The huge fuzzball instructed.  
  
"You- you want me to be your friend?" Randall asked, barely believing it.  
  
"You've changed, you loco lizard," Mike said, slugging the eight- legged thing in the arm. "Besides, we could use some advice on the local little kids so we can get home. I mean, there's got to be at least one kid in this neighborhood with a monster in its closet."  
  
"How about I do a little sneaking about and find out?" the lizard inquired slyly.  
  
"Okay," the pair of lifelong friend responded simultaneously.  
  
"Meet you back here at midnight."  
  
And chaos would soon be set in motion. 


	8. Chapter 10: Spiders and Reunions

Chapter Ten  
  
Sully and Mike sat in the guesthouse watching "The Sound of Music" with Jade, Iris, and Boo. Boo was in Sulley's lap, and she was singing along to the movie with her mother and sister. Boo kept saying "la la de da" when she couldn't remember the words, but Iris and Jade just belted the songs out. It drove Mike nuts.  
  
"Do you guys think you're Julie Andrews?" he snapped at one point. "It's bad enough the film's a musical; I don't think we need live accompaniment."  
  
"Too bad!" Jade retorted. "How do you solve a problem like Wazowski." she sang, changing the song's lyrics, just to bug him.  
  
Sulley laughed at Mike's expression when she did this. He looked very miffed, like someone who's just been sneezed on. "Cheer up, Mike," Sulley told his friend. "It's just for fun."  
  
Mike growled. The sooner they got home, the better, in his opinion. Besides, this little adventure forced him to put off his romantic plan to ask Celia to marry him. He had been about to when the Boo incident came up. He decided to propose as soon as he saw his schmooopsie-poo next.  
  
Sulley actually enjoyed it. Maybe it was only because it was his last chance to be with Boo. He also helped Boo color in a funky drawing of a winged reptile that Iris called a dragon. They were supposedly imaginary, but it had always been believed by adults that the monsters in kid's closets were imaginary too, so who knew?  
  
*********************************************************************** ****** Randall snuck around the neighborhood, trying to get close enough to one of the mansions to find out if there was a little kid inside. If there was, the kid may have a monster in his or her closet that he, Sulley, and Mike could go back to Monstropolis with. Finding this type of information in a neighborhood as wealthy as the one Gill lived in was easier said than done. Almost all of the enormous houses had some kind of security system. Most had an alarm that was set off as soon as he tried to open a window. It didn't matter whether he was camouflaged or not; the maddening things were set off by touch. The worst one was the house with the Dobermans. When he set the alarm off, it set a bunch of savage, slobbering guard dogs loose on him. It took him twenty minutes to escape the nasty beasts.  
  
Finally, at about 10:50 P.M., he found a house that had just been moved into. The alarm had not been set up yet. He slipped inside and did a little snooping. He heard a little boy's voice talking to his mother. Score!  
  
"Mommy, he's there! He's got three eyes, he's this big, and he's red all over. And he wears glasses like me!" The little boy said. Randall got excited. The kid was talking about Fungus! That three-eyed nerd wasn't an assistant anymore. Good for him, Randall thought, before he realized how badly he used to treat Fungus when he was Randall's assistant.  
  
"I'm sure he is," the woman said, obviously not believing her son. She kissed the boy on the forehead. "Goodnight, Kevin."  
  
"Goodnight, Mommy."  
  
The woman left the room and began to walk down the hall where Randall was laying on the floor. Deciding to get out of the way, the lizard- thing leapt onto the wall and clung to it. He jumped so violently that he knocked a picture off center; it was swinging crazily on its hook. He reached out a three-fingered hand and stopped its motion, just seconds before the woman came down the hall. That was cutting it close.  
  
He slipped in to the kid's bedroom. The boy was about five years old, blonde, and freckled. He was looking at his closet, an air of anticipation in his brown eyes. Randall tripped on an action figure of Darth Vader and unwittingly revealed himself, muttering not-so-nice things at the toy.  
  
"Who're you?" the boy asked politely.  
  
"Randall Boggs," the reptile answered. "Stupid thing! The red sword- thingy stabbed me in the foot."  
  
"It's a light-saber," the boy corrected. "I'm Kevin. What're you doing here?"  
  
"I'm going to bring some friends of mine here when the monster in your closet shows up. We're going home with him, whether he likes it or not."  
  
"Going home with who?"  
  
"The monster in your closet, kid."  
  
"You believe me! My mommy says she does, but I know she doesn't. No one's believed me before!"  
  
"The monster in your closet is named Fungus. If he shows up and leaves before I get back, tell him I said hi. And don't mention this to your mother, okay?"  
  
Kevin nodded. "See you later, Randall!"  
  
Randall smiled and waved. "Nice talking to you, Kevin." Randall camouflaged himself and went back to Gill's.  
  
*********************************************************************** *****  
  
Clarissa slithered up to the Monsters, Inc. building with camouflaged stealth. She couldn't make herself nearly invisible like her brother, but what she could do was good enough for sneaking around at night, especially on nights with no moon like this. Amazingly, the front door was unlocked. How convenient. She wouldn't have to pick the lock with her tail. Forgetful janitor, maybe. This might be easier than it seemed.  
  
She began searching the company for the nerd, Fungus. Her plan would fail without him. She didn't know the company well enough to make it work.  
  
Fungus was on the Laugh Floor, which was the last place Clarissa would consider looking for him. He was doing a little comedy for the human kids, to de-stress. She wouldn't find him for quite a while.  
  
*********************************************************************** *****  
  
"You're leaving? Tonight?" Iris squeaked.  
  
"Yeah." Sulley said. "It would be harder on everyone if we stuck around."  
  
"Kitty!" Boo whimpered, clinging to Sulley's tail like she was made of Velcro.  
  
"Kitty has to go. Again," Sulley said forlornly.  
  
"Here. You'll be wanting these," Jade said, and pulled something from her jeans pocket. It was a plastic bag with the pieces of Boo's door that had fallen on her little sister's floor.  
  
Mike was more startled than Sulley. "You didn't," he said.  
  
"I did," she responded "Next time, glue it together."  
  
"I'm not stupid enough to make the same mistake twice," Mike answered back.  
  
"I hope not! Next time, a neighbor might notice you guys. Our next door neighbor works for the CIA."  
  
"CIA?" Mike queried, clueless as to what she was referring to.  
  
"Central Intelligence Agency. It's a government agency," she said. "You'd be guinea pigs in twenty-four hours."  
  
"I thought a guinea pig was a fury rodent," Sulley stated.  
  
"It's also used to refer to the subjects of experiments."  
  
"Oh," Sulley said, deciding that he'd rather not know any more about the subject.  
  
"Well, it's been fun. You two are really nice, even if you are odd. Maybe your oddness is your best trait. And I just want to thank you for bringing Mary home. I can't tell you what it means to me," Iris said.  
  
"We knew you were grateful. She belongs with you anyhow, not us," he said, trying to deflect the thanks.  
  
"Tell that to her," Iris said, pointing to her daughter. Boo had climbed up Sulley's fur and was burying her face into the fur on his neck. Sulley reached a hand up and pet Boo's soft brown hair.  
  
"Aw!" Iris and Jade said simultaneously. Mike suddenly squawked.  
  
"I HATE THIS STUPID PINK STUFF!!!" he exclaimed, making his companions jump in surprise.  
  
"It's making me break out!" he explained furiously. "Look!"  
  
Sure enough, several large, greenish pimples were peering out from under the peach cover-up.  
  
"You got a couple schmegs, there, Mike," Iris said. "Here, this stuff stings a little but it'll help.'  
  
"I'll pass," he said, then paused. "What's a schmeg?"  
  
"A really big zit," Iris clarified. "Anyway, I don't think you should leave them. They can stick around for a really long time if you don't treat them."  
  
Mike made a series of dismayed noises, thinking of having to face Celia with either pimples or goop, and followed Iris into the bathroom. Soon, as iris applied the medicated cream to the green schmegs, a string of yelps issued from Mike that could be heard from behind the closed lavatory door.  
  
Randall chose this particular moment to make his entrance through the window. If anyone had bothered to notice, the window seemed to open of its own accord before the purple lizard appeared from the dark of night.  
  
"Hey, guys, I found a place that'll work. Fungus is apparently the kid's monster. There are no alarms on the place." he stopped when he heard Mike yelp for the umpteenth time. "What on Earth.?"  
  
"My mom's putting zit meds on some of Mike's pimples," Jade told him, grinning.  
  
Mike emerged, having a conniption fit. "Why me? Why? It's not fair! Not fair! Oooh." (That's the gist of it, anyway.)  
  
Randall found this vaguely amusing. He was smirking a little, but was still managing to look confused.  
  
"What're you smiling at, Lizard Boy?" Mike demanded.  
  
"I smile because I have no clue what's going on," Randall stated, quoting what he had seen on a key chain once. Suddenly, Randall screeched, turned stark white, and scurried up the wall to cling on the ceiling in inexplicable terror.  
  
"What's his problem?" Jade queried in puzzlement, jerking her thumb in Randall's direction.  
  
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!" He said, pointing to a spot on the floor.  
  
Boo knew what he was referring to. " 'Pider!" she said.  
  
"Huh?" Sulley said, clueless.  
  
"A spider," Iris explained.  
  
Randall was still bone white, clinging to the ceiling, and had now started trembling. He was making quiet mumblings of distress.  
  
"I don't understand," Jade expressed, kneeling on the floor. "It's just a daddy longlegs."  
  
"Daddy!" Randall exclaimed angrily. "How can they call something so awful 'daddy'?"  
  
Jade made no comment. She calmly picked up the spider and put it on the windowsill.  
  
"Did- did you- touch.?" Randall stammered. He then passed out, falling from the ceiling.  
  
*********************************************************************** **  
  
Trish lay on her bed, her pillow wet with tears. She felt horrible. She just blew it. She had just broken the heart of the only person who had ever really loved her enough to say so. Randall, her dear friend, how could this happen?  
  
A realization abruptly hit her. She cared deeply about Randall. So much she could call it love. She loved Randall. She loved him, and she blew it.  
  
Her brain had been going in these circles for hours. She began to rake up her courage to apologize to her Lizard Boy.  
  
*********************************************************************** ******  
  
"Dang, Randall. I didn't know a monster could react like that to something so teeny, especially when you consider the overall population of Monstropolis."  
  
"Can it, Sullivan," Randall said curtly. This really was not his night. They had already left Gill's mansion and were heading over to Kevin's room. Randall, broken hearted, did not say goodbye to Trish.  
  
The odd homebound trio made their way up to Kevin's second-story window. Randall climbed up the wall and rapped gently against the pane. A light went on inside, and the small blond boy opened the window. "Hi!" he called.  
  
"You didn't talk to the kid, did you?" Mike asked the lizard clinging to the wall of the expensive house.  
  
"I had to talk to him. I stepped on one of his toys and made a bit of a fool of myself," Randall explained. "You first, Sull- Sulley," he invited, correcting himself before he called Sulley by his last name like he used to.  
  
Sulley jumped and grabbed the windowsill. He pulled himself through and Randall jumped off the wall. "I'll give you a boost, Mike."  
  
Randall tried to pick up the lime green creature with his freshly washed and medicated face, but found Mike weighed a lot more than it looked like he did. Mike weighed quite a bit for a thing his size. The lizard tried again, and failed. He panted and stuck out his forked purple tongue in exasperation. Sulley leaned down as Randall tried for the third time. Together they finally got the Cyclops up into the room. Randall simply climbed up the wall and through the window.  
  
By the time Randall got in, Sulley had already introduced himself and his best friend to the young boy. Mike was now being told off for eating too many sweets, making him harder to lift and possibly creating health problems.  
  
"You know, Mike, the doctor said your cholesterol was really high. It would be in your best interest in the long term to cut back on all those sugary things."  
  
"And make you easier to lift," Randall amended, not too helpfully.  
  
Mike glared at his two friends in annoyance. Just then, kevin's closet door creaked and the three-eyed burgundy monster named Fungus slipped through the door, wearing a really silly looking straw hat decorated with feathers, carrots, and a plastic dove. When he saw the other three monsters, he stared at them.  
  
He whimpered. "Randall!" he exclaimed, terrified. "What- what're you doing here? And what are they doing with you? You hate them; they hate you. What on earth?"  
  
"Fungus," Randall said quietly, with an almost sweet tone to his voice. "I turned my act around and, I guess, changed my personality. It's alright; I'm not like that anymore," he explained kindly.  
  
Fungus was taken aback by this new, sweet Randall. The lizard, who had been so mean to Fungus before, was trying to comfort the three-eyed fellow when he was upset. Suddenly, a plethora of science fiction scenarios went through Fungus's head, and he picked the most plausible to ask about.  
  
"Did you have brain surgery or something?" the three-eyed comedian inquired.  
  
Randall grinned. "No, I just got beat up by a hillbilly with a shovel. And I fell in love. She doesn't love me back, though," he said. He had started his comment in good humor, but the thought of Trish and her rejection disheartened him. Sulley patted him on the back in sympathy.  
  
Fungus was taken aback. Sulley showing empathy was no strange sight, but to see Randall taking it from him was. He wondered if these three weren't from a parallel Monstropolis.  
  
Sulley spoke up. "We're all trying to get home, Fungus. Is anyone there right now? We want to keep this a quiet return."  
  
Fungus nodded in understanding. "It's midnight now. I was doing this to relax a bit. Oh! I have to tell you. This news reporter that looks like Randall named Clarissa wants me to show her Randall's secret lab. I don't know how she found out, but she's got me really worried. I'm supposed to meet her at quarter after."  
  
Randall immediately became concerned, even before Sulley did. "Wait," he said. "Does this Clarissa have aquamarine eyes, wear a lot of mascara, and boss everyone around?"  
  
"Yeah!" Fungus exclaimed. "Do you know her?"  
  
"She's my sister," Randall illuminated. "Guys, if Clarissa's looking for my lab at midnight, we can safely assume she's up to no good. I mean, it's not like she goes around at night acting like a fairy godmother," he informed his companions. Abruptly, Randall got an idea. "You know," he said, holding his chin with an upper hand, wagging a finger with the other top hand, and crossing his lower pair of arms, "I think we might be able to find out what she's up to."  
  
The three discussed how to find out what Clarissa was up to right there in Kevin's room. Randall would follow Clarissa as she worked her way to his old lab, while Sulley and Mike would call the police as soon as he gave them the signal: turning on the lobby's lights. Fungus would lead the female lizard around in circles for a while and get her talking about her plans, with Randall following behind listening. The part of Fungus's role that he most despised was that he had to flatter Clarissa to get her talking.  
  
"Can we get it over with?" the burgundy monster asked tensely.  
  
They bode Kevin goodbye and wriggled their way back into Monstropolis.  
  
*********************************************************************** ****  
  
He He He. (*singsong*) I'm torturing you! I can be downright Clarissa- like at times. What a place to end a chapter! There'll be more, I promise. But I don't know if they'll find out what that darned lizard girl is up to, or what she'd do to them if she realizes they're spying on her! (Shichan Goddess, you'd better not spoil the ending. If you do, you will lose best friend privileges!) Hope you enjoyed! Happy Whatever-Holiday(s)-You-Celebrate! 


	9. Chapter 11: Clarissa's Plans

Chapter Eleven  
  
Clarissa, sick of searching for Fungus, finally decided to check the Laugh Floor Fungus was assigned to. When she got there, the burgundy monster was sending an oak door back to the vault.  
  
"Hey, Fungus!" she hollered. "We don't have all night! Let's get this show on the road!"  
  
Fungus gulped and signed some paperwork. "Okay," he whimpered, not looking forward to his task. "Let's go."  
  
Backward-kneed Fungus led the female lizard down a maze of hallways. It took him twenty minutes to rake up the courage to ask her what she was up to.  
  
"Um, Clarissa," Fungus asked timidly, "Why do you need to use Randall's lab? I'm just curious." His heart was beating rapidly. He hoped he hadn't just blown everything by asking too bluntly.  
  
"You can't tell a soul if I tell you," she said. "If you tell anyone, I'll kill you."  
  
Fungus nodded. The death threat didn't mean much to him, considering that Randall used to threaten to shove him in the door shredder daily.  
  
The baneful lizard-woman grinned a nasty, evil grin. She would tell.  
  
What Fungus knew but Clarissa didn't was that Clarissa's twin brother was listening to the conversation. Randall clung to a wall around a corner behind Fungus and Clarissa under camouflage, hoping to find out why his cheating, lying sister wanted to use the hidden lab he had built a year before to house the Scream Extractor.  
  
Clarissa began by explaining her and Randall's competitive past. Fungus was hearing it for the first time, but if you haven't read about it, go back to chapter nine. Randall's version is better anyhow. But soon she reached a point after the both of them had been to separate colleges and began looking for jobs.  
  
"I don't know why I picked reporting school," Clarissa said. "I hate cameras. Besides, who ever heard of a scarer with a reporter's education? Anyhow, after I graduated, I came to this branch of Scareco to get a scarer job. That guy who interviewed me, Waternoose was his name, said I was the best he'd seen, and that he would try to work me out of having to go through training. I was thrilled. I was going to be a scarer! But instead of getting an acceptance letter, I got a rejection letter. Why, you ask? Because my stupid brother went for an interview after me, and snatched the position out from under my feet. Within two days he was at the second-to- top scarer slot." She snapped. She finished with an angry snarl. "All the credit for being the pride of the family went from me to him. It was as if all my accomplishment had never taken place."  
  
Randall, still behind the corner, was shocked. He had never known that Clarissa had interviewed for a job at Monsters, Inc., much less that she had almost been hired before he showed up.  
  
"I stopped talking to him. He flaunted his position in my face. I was so mad. You know, he acted as if he didn't know that I had nearly gotten his job."  
  
Well, I didn't know, Randall thought to himself.  
  
"One day, he said his boss had given him a secret assignment that would revolutionize the scaring industry. He flaunted it in my face repeatedly. But, by the time he disappeared, I knew enough about his project to think about using it for my own purposes. I'm going to get you to help me rebuild the machine he and you built. Then I'm going to take Sullivan when he gets back, hook him up to it, and get him to transfer control of the company to me. I'm going to turn it back to scaring, so I can get higher prices for the power and make a bigger profit. If anyone stands in my way, I'll just use the Scream Extractor on them. Then, if all goes well, I can start overtaking other power factories around here, and become the most powerful monster in the world. No pun intended."  
  
Randall lost it. He was furious beyond compare. Using the machine he built for her nasty purposes, and putting Sulley, his newfound friend onto it, and dragging Fungus into her plans. it was too much. He blew his cover and bolted out into the open.  
  
**************************************************************************** **********  
  
Sulley and Mike were supposed to wait by Celia's desk for Randall to tun on the lobby lights, signaling for them to call the police and have Clarissa arrested. But they didn't wait. They were concerned that Clarissa might do something to Randall or Fungus, or worse, both, and that no one would signal for them to call the police. So they followed.  
  
The heard everything Clarissa said. When Clarissa mentioned hooking Sulley up to the Scream Extractor, Mike tried to run up to her, no doubt wanting to tell her off for even thinking about doing that to his best friend. Sulley held him back.  
  
"Lemme at her!" he whispered furiously. "Lemme rip her fronds out!"  
  
"Shhh!" Sulley shushed Mike, hearing something else. It was Randall.  
  
**************************************************************************** ********  
  
Randall revealed himself and launched out from behind the corner. "Clarissa!!" he yelled irately, "You've gone too far! This is enough! Your cheating at every competition we entered was enough! My building the Scream Extractor was enough! But this- this is too much! You can't do this Clarissa! I won't let you!"  
  
"You won't let me? You won't let me?" she hissed, her voice full of hatred. "You, who threatened my continual champion's title, you, who wanted more than anything to be better than the best when you couldn't match it, you, who swiped my dreams out from under my feet, dare to stop me from accomplishing my calling? Let me tell you something, brother. I won't let you stop me!" She finished her speech at a yell, and pulled a knife from a fold in her skin, a feature she had that her brother didn't.  
  
She took the knife and screeched. Time seemed to go in slow motion. Clarissa came at Randall and plunged the knife into his side, between his left upper arms. An excruciating pain shot through him there, and he crumpled toward the wound as she pulled the knife out. Randall's green eyes went out of focus. Clarissa's smug, evil smirk was the last thing he saw before he blacked out.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
I'm not going to tell you what's going to happen. There will be more, I promise, but that's all I'm saying. 


	10. Chapter 12: Resulution

Chapter 12  
  
Trish meandered into the guesthouse, hoping to find Randall there. He wasn't.  
  
"Have you seen Randall?" Trish asked hopefully. Iris and Jade simply shook their heads, trying to comfort the sobbing little girl on the bed. Trish turned to leave.  
  
"He left with Sulley and Mike, Trish," Iris informed her niece forlornly. "I'm sorry, Trish."  
  
Trish froze. She turned slowly around, and looked her aunt in the eye. "He went with Sulley and Mike?" She asked, hardly daring to hope. "Did they go back to Monstropolis?"  
  
"Yes. Why?" Iris asked, not understanding.  
  
"There's only one house in the entire neighborhood that they could possibly get into that has a little kid. I'm going so I can find them." Trish stated determinedly. "Thanks." she said, and left to search for Randall.  
  
She finally found the place and got into Kevin's room. It was a good thing she was in jeans, because Kevin's family had cat-claw all over the place, making it quite a hassle to climb up to the window. She supposed later that she could have slipped in through a door, but it didn't occur to her until later. She gently roused Kevin.  
  
"Kevin," she said softly, "It's your neighbor, Trish. I need to ask you something."  
  
Kevin sprang right up, still wakeful after Randall's visit. "Sure," he said cheerfully.  
  
"Has an eight-legged purple lizard been here?" she queried.  
  
"You mean Randall? Yeah, he and his friends were here a moment ago. They went in there with the monster in my closet." He said, and pointed to the closet door.  
  
"Thank you," Trish whispered sweetly. She went t the oak closet and opened it a crack. What she saw was not clothing, but a large room with a row of curved desks, all piled with paperwork and manila file folders. She opened the door further and something gave out a squeak. She looked down and saw a burgundy monster with three eyes and glasses. His eyes widened when he saw her.  
  
"I'm sorry. Did I bump you?" Trish asked politely.  
  
"What do you think you're doing? Get back in there. You don't want to get caught by this gal that's coming."  
  
Trish ignored his warning. "I'm looking for an eight-legged reptile monster named Randall Boggs," she asked. "Have you seen him?"  
  
"You know Randall?"  
  
Trish nodded.  
  
"He's down the hall. But we're kinda in the middle of something. Can you do this a little later?"  
  
"Maybe," Trish answered. There was a slight patter of feet down the hallway. The burgundy monster panicked.  
  
"Quick!" he said. "Under my desk! Hurry!"  
  
Trish obeyed and crawled under the desk as fast as she could. A split second after she got under it, another monster came down the hall. Her heart gave a leap. She thought it was Randall. But as the monster came down the hall, Trish realized it wasn't. This monster had longer fronds with one that came forward, a skinnier face, and long eyelashes. This monster looked female. Her voice confirmed this theory.  
  
"Fungus!" she called in a commanding voice. "We don't have all night! Let's get this show on the road!"  
  
Fungus walked to the desk and moved a few files around. "Okay." He said timidly. "Let's go."  
  
The two left. Trish lay under the desk, waiting. She looked over towards where she had come in. She saw the empty doorstation with no idea what it really was. She thought that maybe Randall was still down the hall, having no clue what was going on at the time. She called his name in a whisper. "Randall?" She got no answer. She tried three more times before deciding he wasn't there and simply waited.  
  
She heard a commotion down the way. There were yells and a few shrieks. One of them sounded like Randall. She lay under the desk for a minute, trying to decide what to do. **************************************************************************** **********  
  
"EEEEK!!" Mike squealed, when he saw what Clarissa had done. "You freaking nutcase!" he screamed at her. "Just because he was better than you doesn't mean you had any right to kill him!"  
  
Fungus was sitting by Randall, taking his pulse. "He's not dead, but if he keeps bleeding like this he will be."  
  
Sulley came to his senses. He leapt at Clarissa and pinned her down so she couldn't make a run for it, then turned to his best friend. "Mike," he said, "go to Celia's desk and call the emergency line. It's 119."  
  
"I know what it is!" Mike snapped. He bolted down the hall as fast as his little green legs could carry him.  
  
Sulley turned to Randall's former assistant. "Fungus, I need you to get Randall a first aid kit. Hurry." Fungus nodded and hurried on his way. Sulley moved Clarissa around so it would be harder for her to wriggle away. She made grunt of protest, but did nothing else. She was fuming with rage, but could do nothing.  
  
Trish, still under Fungus's desk, saw Mike hurrying in the hall, muttering frantically as he went. She knew something was wrong and decided to go down the hall Mike had just come from.  
  
When Trish got there, she saw something that shocked her. Sulley was on the floor, on top of the monster that she had seen Fungus with. Behind them, Randall lay almost lifeless on the floor, fuchsia blood leaking on the floor.  
  
She let out a squeal of dismay and scrambled to Randall's side. She pulled out her handkerchief and wrapped it around Randall, over the wound to stop the bleeding. She couldn't help but feel as though it was her fault that Randall was in such a state. She had broken his heart, she thought, and driven him to giving up his life. She didn't know that his sister tried to kill him. She didn't even know he had a sister. She began to sob.  
  
Mike came back about a second after Trish began crying. "I called, Sulley. They won't be here for ten minutes," he said, his stress showing in his voice and his eye. He then noticed Trish. "Hey," he said, "What're you doing here, girl?"  
  
"I- I wanted to apologize to him for acting the way I did!" She sobbed. "Now- now he's- It's my fault!"  
  
She broke into uncontrolled crying. Mike patted her on the back. "It's not your fault. His stupid sister stabbed him!" Mike told Trish, raising his voice on the last two words of his statement. Clarissa, still under Sulley, snarled.  
  
"He got what he deserved," Clarissa said nastily.  
  
This made Trish furious. "Take it back," she said coldly.  
  
Clarissa merely snarled. To everyone's surprise, Trish snarled back, even louder than Clarissa had. Clarissa's eyes widened in surprise.  
  
At that moment, the emergency crews from the hospital, the police, the fire department, and the CDA came in. They all stopped.  
  
"A human!" a tentacled orange monster from the police department exclaimed in fear.  
  
"Stand back!" a monster in a yellow CDA biohazard suit commanded. "Humans are deadly organisms! Contact with their toxin is fatal!"  
  
Trish gave them the look that told anyone that she considered them morons. "That's the dumbest thing I ever heard," she said flatly.  
  
"It talks!" a brownish five-eyed monster from the fire department blurted out.  
  
"I don't care if it knows the answer to life, the universe, and everything!" a furry female hospital representative snapped. "The person who called said there had been a stabbing. Is that true?"  
  
"Yes," Sulley, Mike, and Trish answered simultaneously.  
  
"Guys, get him on a stretcher. The police will arrest whoever stabbed him, if the suspect is anywhere in the vicinity. Isn't that correct?" the doctor asked, turning to the police. They nodded.  
  
"The monster who stabbed him is right there," Mike said. "Sulley pinned her down."  
  
The police came forward with handcuffs and arrested Clarissa. When they had done so, Trish slapped the lizard monster. The CDA lost it. "Twenty-three- nineteen!!" they hollered, and threw Clarissa to the floor. They showered her and put a funnel-shaped collar around her neck as part of the decontamination. She looked really stupid, with the translucent white funnel-collar (like those put on pets after seeing the vet for major operations) and her hands cuffed, plus the CDA decontamination shower had made her mascara run. Trish grinned.  
  
The doctors and nurses were carrying Randall to the ambulance on the white stretcher. Trish scrambled after them.  
  
"Wait!" she cried. "Please, let me go with him!"  
  
"You're a human!" one male, orange, seven-eyed nurse informed her.  
  
"I know that!" she snapped.  
  
"Humans are toxic!" the orange nurse stated, waving a tentacle in fear. "You'll only make his condition worse!"  
  
"I'm not toxic! Please, let me go with him!"  
  
The doctor who had taken control of the situation back in the hall spoke up. "She can't be toxic. If she was, that monster who stabbed this fellow would have died the moment she touched her." The doctor beckoned with a fuzzy yellow-brown paw. "Come on."  
  
Trish, unable to believe what had happened in the past fifteen minutes, climbed into the ambulance. A nurse shut the doors and the ambulance sped away.  
  
**************************************************************************** **********  
  
Randall woke up with a splitting headache and an excruciating pain in his side. He groaned involuntarily. A hand gently stroked his fronds.  
  
"Shh. It'll be okay, love," a female voice said kindly. "The nurse is getting you some more painkillers."  
  
The voice sounded familiar. "Trish?" he said softly.  
  
"Randall? Are you awake?" She sounded concerned. Yes, it was Trish.  
  
Randall opened his eyes, but was blinded by florescent lights and quickly shut them again. He tried again, opening his eyes more slowly. He blinked rapidly. After his eyes adjusted, Trish seemed to materialize in front of him. He smiled at her, glad she was there, but frowned soon after in puzzlement. "Where am I?" he asked. "Why are there tubes in my arm?"  
  
Trish smiled weakly. "We're in a hospital," she said. "In Monstropolis."  
  
"In Monstropolis? But how come you're here?" he asked. "I mean, most monsters must still think humans are toxic."  
  
"Sulley had to pull a few strings," she answered.  
  
Randall made an affirmative grunt and tried to sit up. It made him dizzy and he groaned again.  
  
"Lay down, Randall," Trish said, gently pushing him back into the pillow. "You've been in bed for over a week."  
  
"Why?" he asked, having purged last week's events.  
  
"Your stupid, nutcase sister tried to kill you," Trish said. "Stubborn brat wants a trial. I don't see how she could win. Fungus, Sulley and Mike all saw it, not to mention she was right in front of a security camera."  
  
Randall snorted. "Typical," he said disdainfully. "She thinks she rules the universe and can make things go her way." Trish's presence suddenly sank in as being real. "How did you get here?"  
  
"I followed," she said. "I wanted to apologize, for acting like I did. Can you forgive me?"  
  
"For what? For keeping your father from skinning me for loving you?"  
  
"That doesn't make sense, Randall," Trish said.  
  
"I think that you being upset took his mind off me for a while. Besides, I understand that it might have startled you to be told that an eight-legged lizard loved you," he said, grinning.  
  
"So, you still love me?"  
  
"Of course I do. How could I not?" He said the words casually, but his eyes betrayed his emotions.  
  
Trish bent down and kissed him. "I love you, Lizard Boy," she whispered in his ear.  
  
He grabbed her hand and asked, "Will you marry me?"  
  
"Pardon me?" Trish asked, taken aback, and not sure if her ears weren't playing tricks on her.  
  
"Will you marry me, Trish?" Randall asked, clearly pouring his heart into the question.  
  
Trish got tears in her eyes. She smiled. "Yes!" she exclaimed, then threw her arms around Randall's neck. They kissed.  
  
**************************************************************************** **********  
  
"I think I have a job for you, Randall," Sulley said. "But you may not like it."  
  
Randall, in Sulley's office, shrugged. He had asked Sulley if he had any jobs available, so he and Trish could do a number of things: pay off hospital bills, get a place to live, and pay for their wedding. Trish knew enough about architecture to do some simple things to pay for her tuition at Monstropolis City College, but they still needed something that could pay grocery bills and the rent.  
  
"What is it?" Randall asked, curious what Sulley had under his fur.  
  
Mike wandered into Sulley's office the second Randall asked his question, as if cued. "Sulley, I really need an assistant. I can't do comedy and laugh reports. I'm even more behind in my paperwork than I was before, and that's saying something."  
  
Sulley looked at Randall, implying something with his eyes. Randall understood what Sulley was implying. "You've got to be kidding," he said.  
  
Mike was without a clue. "What? Kidding about what?"  
  
"Well," Sulley said, too amused by the situation to suppress his grin, "You're looking for an assistant, and Randall's looking for a job, so."  
  
"No way, Sulley!" Mike said, gesturing vehemently to accent his point. "No way!"  
  
"Please, Sulley," Randall said. "I'll assist anyone else. I'll file paperwork, even. Just don't pair me up with him."  
  
"I think you're stuck together, guys," Sulley said, still grinning form horn to horn. "Mike, considering that you never filed your paperwork, I'll have Fungus train him. You won't have to deal with him until he's ready to go."  
  
Randall and Mike left the office. Mike was muttering; Randall was snarling. They eventually made a very entertaining pair when they started the War of Practical Jokes, but that's another story.  
  
**************************************************************************** *********  
  
Sulley placed the last piece of Boo's door into its steel frame. The red light on top came on immediately. He slowly opened the door, clutching a small package. He went into the room, and put the package on Boo's pillow. On the package, a tag read:  
  
To Boo  
  
Love, Kitty  
  
Inside the package was a tiny glass bottle on a silver chain. In the bottle were three strands of blue and purple fur. Sulley had a similar bottle tied to his wrist. He gently cut a few of Boo's hairs and put them in his bottle. Sulley had realized that it would only be harder on Boo to have to say goodbye again, so he decided to leave her be, with a small gift to remember him by.  
  
**************************************************************************** **********  
  
THE END  
  
That's all for this story, folks. I'm going to do a sequel, though, in the form of a Harry Potter/Monsters, Inc. crossover that I'm going to write with Shichan Goddess. We're going to have Boo in Hogwarts, and have her around fourteen or fifteen, when Sulley, Mike and Randall show up. Needless to say, things will get a little odd. I hope to hear from all of you who have reviewed "Stuck in the Human World" so faithfully. By the way, thanks for giving me feedback. It was very encouraging.  
  
Hope you liked it! ^_^ 


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